Liberalism in the Bedroom

by Hunefeldt, Christine

• ISBN13: 9780271019369
• ISBN10: 0271019360
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Summary

This book tells the story of how ordinary Peruvian men and women experienced their lives and especially their marriages in a patriarchal society and how, through the struggles involved in divorce, women tried to defend their rights and in the process helped bring about change in society more broadly.

Careful examination of more than one thousand cases of conjugal suits filed in Lima's archbishopric, as well as wills in notarial records, allowed the author to trace over time quarreling spouses' relationships, attitudes, and perceptions of gender, life cycle, race, and class and to study their evolving moral expectations and the varying pace of social change.

The history of this marital dialogue reveals the construction of a new terminology, based on liberal ideas imported from England and France, that found its way into domestic life and influenced how conflicts were perceived and resolved. Far from opening doors for women, liberalism maintained women's inferior status but also shifted the ground on which women waged battles for survival.

By the end of the

Author Biography

Christine Hunefeldt is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
List of Abbreviations	xv
Glossary	xvii
Introduction	1	(16)
Lima in the Nineteenth Century	17	(44)
Part I: Couples, Barrios, and the Church
At Home and in the Streets	61	(18)
The People and the Church	79	(30)
The Canonic Interstices: Dissent, consent, Incompatibility	109	(38)
Guarding Marriage from Conflicts: Couples and Beaterios	147	(32)
Part II: Couples and Everyday Life
Women and the Dangers of Premarital Sex	179	(44)
Dowries and Marriage in Civil Court	223	(50)
Strategies for Survival: Struggles over Assets and Earnings	273	(42)
Redefining Female Domains	315	(32)
The End of the Century and Backward	347	(22)
Bibliography	369	(16)
Index	385